Satellite imagery from March 5, 2013...shows
newly-arrived main battle tanks, 10 heavy transporters (HETS), and two
Mi-24 helicopter gunships, in Heglig, an oil producing region in South
Kordofan, Sudan, which South Sudan claims lies within its territory.
Heglig was the scene of the last major military engagement between Sudan
and South Sudan in April 2012.

Though the government of Sudan neither confirms nor denies an
increased military presence in Heglig, imagery dated March 5, 2013 shows
newly-arrived tanks and HETS in a military support area in the town, as
well as newly-arrived attack helicopters at the airbase. The report
includes an overview map of the disposition of Sudan Armed Forces, or
SAF, in and around Heglig.

Plus, I totally like the idea of people. I see them all the time on Facebook and even Gchat a few. When I need a pick-me-up, I listen to snippets of Susan Cain’s TED talk on the power of introverts and think of all the introverts I will tell about it through rapid-fire texting.

And a re-post because I LOVE this article: “Caring for Your Introvert.” It’s definitely not all applicable to all introverts, but parts (“Hell is other people at breakfast.") just really speak to me.

What is introversion? In its modern sense, the concept goes back to the 1920s and the psychologist Carl Jung. Today it is a mainstay of personality tests, including the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say "Hell is other people at breakfast." Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression.

What can I expect of my writer? Remember that at any given moment your writer could produce something brilliant, transcendent, revolutionary, or just really deep. Say it’s Monday morning and your writer appears to be drinking in front of the television—resist the natural urge to question! By mistaking research for leisure activity, well-meaning but inexperienced caregivers often disrupt critical chains of reasoning. Countless great thoughts have been lost this way. Keep in mind that a writer’s work is often unappreciated until after his or her time. In short, expect nothing less than posthumous glory, but be patient.

Remember, a young writer can seem cute and harmless, but without proper nurturing he or she can grow to be an unmanageable adult. However, with the right early care and training, the writer in your life can become a unique and wonderful companion, one that can draw you, the writer’s special human caregiver, into a lasting and loving relationship.

A few months ago, The Daily Nation wrote that the 2013 Kenyan elections are not only the most expensive since independence. They are actually the most expensive in the world:

Elections in Kenya are the most expensive in the world thanks to a high voter registration cost, administrative inefficiencies and outright theft of funds.

In counting the costs of this election, we also have to consider that (a) this was not not an election day, it was an “election week”, where most shops remained closed, workers didn’t go to work and central business districts all over Kenya became ghost towns for almost seven days in a row. And (b) let’s not even talk about the huge costs of the election campaigns.

So, if you knew, 10 years ago, what Iraq looked today, and what it took to get here, would you support the war? I mean this seriously, even if the answers is almost certainly no, because Iraq is a better place today than it was then. The shaky Maliki government is definitely an improvement on Saddam; I don’t think that is up for much debate and should be admitted. The question is whether it was worth the cost. And the cost should include the roughly 125,000 Iraqi civilians killed. I find American pundits tend to focus solely on the much smaller number of US casualties, which is deeply inappropriate.

I think IR bears a special burden for the US use of force overseas, because, more than any other identifiable section of academia, we study that. Yes, the DC think-tanks also work in this area, as do diplomatic historians. But at the risk of cheerleading for our discipline, I believe IR conducts more basic research than these other two, and we’re far less co-opted than the think-tank set. We generate a lot of deep theory about how world politics works, particularly on the causes and consequences of war. Furthermore, a lot of us study US foreign policy specifically – just go open an random copy of International Security to see how much ‘America’ actually dominates our supposedly ‘international’ discipline.